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Perhaps it was the moonlight, perhaps the chill of the night, perhaps it was many things, but Mira Badb Catha could not sleep. She'd scooted around from one side of the massive bed to the other, her wings tangled in the sheets, and still...no Bran could be found by the half-awake, half-dreaming dragon-elf.
Finally, Mira pulled herself up on her elbow, her eyes searching the moonlit room. The fire had died low, which explained the coolness, but where had her husband gone?
"Bran? Bran?" Mira's sleepy tone carried through the rooms as she scrubbed her eyes with her hands then peered around. The library doors were open...as well as the door to the bathing pool...perhaps he'd not been able to sleep either?
Barefeet found their way to the floor; a soft smile lighting her face, then the sound of wings in the air came to Mira's ears. The Pull set the dragon-elf's blood afire and her eyes glowing. Something wasn't right with this dragons flight...the rhythm of the wings were staggered, out of time, and weakening.
"Sweet Brighid..." Mira's eyes went wide as she flung the massive doors open to the ledge...
Great wings faltered, Tay’s days of self-depravation making her dragonself weak, dehydrated, and barely able to fly. Agaru let out a trumpet of distress as she lost altitude, falling short of Callan’s ledge and spiraling towards one below. Talons scraped on stone and faceted emerald eyes retracted in on themselves as the doors flung open, the low light of the room hitting their sparkling surface and reflecting the image of Mira Badb Catha.
The Crimson bugled a warning, unable to stop her headlong flight, her forearm giving beneath the strain and sending her crashing over onto one shoulder. Scales screeched against stone and a wing caught a doorframe, snapping the fine bones beneath the hide and bringing a bellow of pain from the forty-five foot Dragon.
Her great form came to a jarring stop, and then she struggled to rise, her bond to Callan burning with pain and unspent rage. Araxmarr! Snarling with fury she went down again, the foremost thought in her head … that she should have eaten that cursed Elen when she had the chance.
Mira stumbled back away from the falling Crimson as she crashed onto the ledge, her jade eyes wide. For a stunned moment, the dragon-elf gaped, then rushed forward, bits of broken doorframe falling to the ground around her.
"Agaru?" Mira's voice dropped to a hushed mutter as slender fingers slid to crimson scales and came back sticky with blood.
"Oh gods.... Agaru? What...who?"
Expert fingers slid to broken bones...there had been more than wood popping and cracking as her father's mate collided with the Keep....
"Sweet Brighid and Chaos...your wing..."
Jade eyes sought emerald, "You need help."
Mira waited for the Crimson to make the decision; she desperately wanted to mend the broken bones for her...but would not force healing on her.
Agaru tilted her head; one agonized emerald eye focusing on Mira. Callan’s rage and pain had eased, somehow, and it brought the Crimson’s attention back to matters that had suddenly become a little more desperate. I’ll be fine, but my skinwalker … there is something wrong with her …
The past weeks had been a struggle for the Dragon, it was not the first time she had cared for the Amazon when sanity had left her, but his time … this time An’Thaya’s soul was severely damaged, and Agaru had no idea how to fix it. The Dragon’s soul had wedged into the yawning abyss that had torn open within her other self’s spirit, the only thing keeping the galaxy from tearing apart, or collapsing completely in on itself.
Without waiting for an answer, she shifted to Tay’s more manageable form, though she retained the wings, one drooping uselessly beneath Mira’s hand, the other wrapped tight around the Amazon’s blood and soot streaked body. Faceted eyes gazed up at the DragonElf, the daughter of her mate, and one of the few beings the Crimson trusted. “Y’Roden … trusts you, as does she, or I would not ask.”
"He trusts me...yes, as does An'Thaya." Mira nodded softly and slid her fingers across the main pinion. Small talk was over for now...
"This is going to hurt at first...but I have to set it before I mend it..."
Mira gently pulled the wing out, then gave the Crimson a warning glance as she stretched it to the broken point, and with a quick snap, popped the jagged ends together. Immediately, warm, soothing heat crept into her fingers, as the dragon-elf began reminding the bone and marrow what it was like to whole. The entire process was nothing more than the body's own natural healing, only sped up exponentially. Mira intentionally left the cuts...those were not so terrible, they were already trying to heal of their own, but need cleaning and bandaging.
Agaru...what happened? Why this...confusion you speak of and I feel in An'Thaya?
Mira could sense it, the collapsing galaxy within the amazon, and it terrified her, but beyond the terror, Mira felt something else, remembered her mother's words:
"You are a SoulHealer, as am I, as was Kyra, and her mother...and..."
Only once had she made the effort to heal intentionally, and her first attempt had been Y'Roden, the memories of the emerald and black laced soul wound with jade would be forever in her mind, always the memories of the storm it had been, and the peaceful beauty it was meant to be. Mira swallowed hard, then slipped an arm around the Crimson's skinwalker to support her.
"I can help her..."
Agaru winced slightly as the bone was reset, but cast a grateful look up at Mira. She shifted uncomfortably at the question, not really sure how much she should reveal of her Skinwalkers secrets. “You can heal her? How?” Hope shone in the depths of the Crimson’s eyes for the first time in weeks.
“Something … happened. All of her bonds are broken, she tried to stop it, Galain tried … there was nothing to be done. Memories, pain, she couldn’t handle it anymore. This wound, its old, centuries old, it ruptured again when the links to her bondmates snapped.” Leaning heavily on the DragonElf Agaru drew a shuddering breath and nodded, “If you are going to do what I think it is you intend … you will know everything shortly anyway.”
Mira nodded mutely, but was astonished. Her bonds were broken? How in the name of the gods had that happened?
"Let’s get inside for starters. I don't think her body is going to hold out much longer."
Mira pulled the delicate frame of the redhead closer and all but carried her into the Keep, then helped Agaru to the fire. She could feel something so like fever running through An'Thaya's body as she carefully helped her to the fur covered floor in front of the coals.
A toss of Mira's hand had the fire burning high again, illuminating An'Thaya's haggard, pale but dirty face.
"I'll help you get cleaned up soon, but I think this is more important at the moment."
Mira tilted her head to the side, her fingers sliding under Thaya's jaw and she slipped to her knees. Thumbs slid along the line of the bone there as jade eyes studied emerald for a moment before her lashes drifted shut. The fingers of one hand gently pressed to the Amazon's throat, feeling the pulse there...
And two heartbeats became one, Mira's black and silver soul with its jade, sapphire and yellow lacings, threaded into An'Thaya's whirling soul.
And Mira choked with what she saw.
My gods...its a train-wreck...Agaru?" Mira's soul whispered to the Crimson's, "I may save An'Thaya...but you both may be lost in the process..."
An’Thaya’s body stiffened with Agaru’s shock, a sharp breath drawing over dry lips. Lost? The pulse beneath Mira’s fingers increased, betraying the Crimson’s fear. An’Thaya was in no condition to make this decision, it fell to the Dragon alone. What would happen to her? Would she just … cease to exist, as easily as she had come into being?
Fear brought a chill, and she shivered despite the warmth of the fire, the light reflecting off a tear that trickled down the Amazon’s cheek.
Agaruloki had come into being with a single purpose, to save An’Thaya D’Riel Alcarin. Despite all she had become, the love she had found … that purpose still existed.
“Do it,” she whispered, ignoring the thundering of her Skinwalkers heart. “Mira … if I…” Terror silenced her voice and the Crimson trembled beneath the DragonElf’s fingers. Tell him I love him.
I don't think it will be bad as all that... Mira whispered as her own eyes began burning. Already, the Healing was beginning...she could feel the fear, the sorrow...and the love of Agaru and deeper, beneath her awareness, the writhing mass of confused soul that was An'Thaya.
Arminiea...help me heal her...Brighid, walk with me through this Fire...
It had nearly put Mira in bed for days healing Y'Roden...and that had been but a skimming, a re-threading of a few holes...a simple reinforcement.
But this? An'Thaya was in worse shape than the Dragon-elf had been after her attempt to rip the doppelganger’s soul to shreds.
Gasping, Mira dropped her shields and plunged into the storm, praying that Bran was nearby...and could both protect himself as well as pull her out if she could not.
Visions assaulted her from all sides, An'Thaya's soul was lost to madness and memories of horrors past. The soul that had once been hers alone had been broken time and time again...and in the end, she had turned on herself....
Screams of terror and agony struck Mira like a blow...
There been three of them...all Alcarins...
Agaru... Mira gasped in pain and misery.
Silver stands threaded around the Crimson, even as in life, Mira's arms gathered her close, her body shaking with the effort to grasp the threads of emerald and crimson.
So here you began...
Mira had no time to ponder the Crimson's uniqueness...Disjointed memories flooded out, ripping every seam Mira replaced and shredding every patch.
An elf...his hair bearing a pale stripe...
Railen...
Another standing over her, a glowing...sword? in hand...
Elyen...
Death...the feel of sharp fangs piercing flesh.
Then life...but not life as it should be...
Galain?
Mira shook her head slowly in denial of the image of Galain, undead and twisted, then filed that away for later rumination.
"No... No... This isn't working...Tay? I can't..."
Another sharp gasp, this one loud in the empty room, and the Dragon-elf delved into the darkness of her own soul, ruthlessly using the Black within her to grasp the Crimson's soul.
"It is here we may all be lost..."
Agaru desperately hung on to consciousness, nearly overwhelmed by An’Thaya’s shock and shame at having her secrets revealed. Oddly, the Amazon didn’t struggle as the Crimson thought she might, but neither did she reach out to the help that was being offered.
Somewhere, deep down, Tay could see Mira through a haze of emerald green laced with Crimson and Black. Agaru and Callan … gods, she could not even escape him in the privacy of her own soul. Galain, Adarin, Jaiden, Mystical … she had lost them all, betrayed them, and the man … dragon … she had given herself to was now more a part of her than they were.
Memories, her memories, whipped around like debris in a tornado, the galaxy of her soul expanding and contracting as the DragonElf attempted her healing. It hurt … she was so tired of the pain … it would be so much easier just to collapse, slide through the conduit and become … nothing.
A scream, a duet, Amazon and Dragon both protested the searing agony as the Black within Mira gripped the part of them that was Agaru. Yet still, the Crimson was unafraid. Araxmarr had taught her, being a Black … did not necessarily make one evil.
Glowing jade eyes snapped open, but the dragon-elf was not seeing the chambers she and Bran shared...she was seeing something no one ever had, and hopefully never would again.
So many scientists of Terran debated it, others feared it, still others wrote fanciful stories...Mira was witnessing it. The endless, colorless void at the center of An'Thaya's being was slowly sucking everything that was Thaya into its core, and one by one, the lights that belonged to the Amazon went out.
"NO!" Mira's own soul pulsed Black, now the dominant color as she lunged for an emerald thread and was hit with feelings of shame and regret...and hopelessness. This thread had been too close to the edge, this was An'Thaya's core...and Mira was delving deeper than any SoulHealer had, for no SoulHealer had ever working with a D'Riel essence.
Frantically, Mira's silver tendrils latched onto anything and everything that was further from the conduit, while at the same time, the dragon-elf poured her own memories into An'Thaya, her own fears and shames. Her own dark desires and abuses at the hands of the demon-elf...and the wreckage of her soul that had taken three people to heal, her joy and wonder...and her love.
Silver threads tugged at memories of children born, a wife who while growing older, was still loved while the black ribbon of dragon blood wound ever tighter around emerald and crimson.
Nephews and nieces, orchids and green growing things...
The smell and the hush of the jungle right before the rain, and the smell of fresh turned earth and the sound of falling leaves in autumn.
"There are many reasons to fight...to live...to breath...Don't let the darkness win, An'Thaya...not this time...not here."
Slender Elven jade tendrils, the gift of Mira's mother, drifted out, seeking another thread to tether the emerald with...and came back with something unexpected.
An onyx thread wound with silver, crimson and the faintest hint of jade green.
"Daddy?" Mira's awareness was flooded with the memories of her father and An'Thaya...not Agaru, and the passion of the moment shook the Healer's soul.
So this then was the key that had set this all in motion?
That bit of insight, that bit of memory made this all make sense, and Mira hoped, when this was over, An'Thaya would forgive her for what she was about to do.
The Dragon-elf tugged at the strand, then took up a crimson cord, and used their strength to shore up An'Thaya's crumbling essences and tie them together. But something even more unexpected happened...the onyx cord ripped free from her, and slammed into emerald in a shower of glistening light and Mira was blinded by pain, and for a moment, saw through her father's eyes...
The forge...Galain...
Oh gods...
Mira gasped in agony as balefire shot through her father the pain transferring to her, scalding her flesh and spirit.
Then there was silence...but the thread of his soul was still there, pulsing with life, winding gently around Agaru, then enfolding An'Thaya, pulling her away from the abyss with love and tenderness.
Slowly, Mira began unwinding, wondering if she'd done more damage than good...and felt warm blood trickle down her face.
In her battle to save An'Thaya, delicate tissues in her sinuses had ruptured and she'd bitten her lip hard enough to draw blood.
Now the trick was getting herself out...and leaving as little of her own soul behind as she could...
A rushing roar swept through him...and he was seeing through eyes not his own. Jade threads of his beloved wife that lived on in his daughter wrapped around he and Agaru's bond, blessing and embracing it...and brought him dangerously close to single ribbon of emerald.
Life shot through his veins and raced along nerves, the skin on his right arm almost split wide open.
"You're not getting out of this that easily..." Callan whispered. "I have to stay...you have to stay..."
An explosion of light flooded his inner vision, showers of crimson and black, silver, jade and emerald shot through his soul.
"And I'll bind you to me if I must...but you will not cease to be...not now...not as long as I have a hold on you..."
His burning skin crawled again, this time differently, this time something more of a caress, a feral, wild thing that reminded him of their time together. The ribbon of his soul wound around An'Thaya's and began pulling her away, and melding with hers....
Breath came in short gasps, panic and pain racing through her shattered soul. Through it all, An’Thaya could hear Mira’s voice, soothing, calling her back, binding her spirit to the world of the living. There was no real urge to go either way anymore, no desire for death, no real wish to live either, just a quiet neutrality as her soul was rewoven, patched, and healed.
Agaru … The Amazon embraced her other self, her salvation, strength and love. Together, they slid towards the abyss, only to be blinded by an explosion of light. In shock, Tay felt another soul connect with hers, pulling her back, and she recoiled.
Callan?
Visions of the forge flooded her mind and she screamed in protest, her soul reaching for a bond that was no longer there. Galain!
How? Why? Gods why! This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted, what terrified her the most. Horrified she slipped further, this time wishing for the darkness of death, to silence the guilt and grief. Yet, Callan was stronger than she, and there was no resisting the triad that forced her back to life … back to … something.
What was she now? An’Thaya? Agaru? Taygaru? The eyes that opened to gaze helplessly up at Mira were a myriad of both, flickering from cat-slit to faceted emerald green. Crimson eyelashes fluttered down, closing the curtain on her soul as the Amazon’s body collapsed.
Mira was barely able to hold herself up as she release the Amazon and allowed her to slide to the firelit fur. One shaking hand went to her face as she rubbed her fingers across her mouth...her hand came back covered in dark blood.
Removing herself from Tay's soul had been hard...so much was damaged, so much pain was there, and the SoulHealer could have lost herself in her work. It had taken all the strength she had to pull free, and as it was, she wondered how much of herself had been left behind, filling holes and stitching tears.
To weak to even hold herself up, Mira slipped to the floor next to An'Thaya, one glistening black wing covering them both to keep warm, the other stretched out behind her, like some awkward extension to the soft fur beneath them.
Jade eyes flickered shut, but not before going wide as they met the garbled reflections in An'Thaya's eyes.
What have I done...
And dreamless dark enveloped the dragon-elf as well....
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